Asking about "Asking about"

Authoring Inform 7
21

Cool! Good to know. Is there any difference between

Instead of quizzing Ganon about job posting: 
...

and

Instead of asking Ganon about "[job posting]":
...
22

One works with objects, the other with topics. Objects are easier to parse in my experience but you can do either.

1 Like
23

(Specifically, when working with topics, you have to do all the parsing yourself. If you want to accept “apple”, “green”, “green apple”, “the apple”, and “green apple”, then you have to manually write a topic that encompasses all of those. With objects, Inform’s parser handles all those variations automatically for you.)

(So if you use topics, you’re taking on more work, but in exchange you have complete control over what sequences of words are recognized or not. Up to you if that tradeoff is worth it! But you can get that kind of control with objects, using privately-named and Understand lines, while you can’t get the ease-of-use with topics. So in my opinion, objects are better. Especially in I11 when concepts get introduced.)

24

…but isn’t it trivial to define concepts in I10 if you really want them?

25

Thanks for the clarification. I think there is also the advantage of keeping the association between quizzing:object and asking:topic is cleaner. With a sequence of quizzing and asking statements, I’ll know at a glance which is which.

EDIT: I get a compile error when I try QUIZZING.( ?? ) Back to ASKING.

26

It is, but most people don’t know to do that (or how to do it properly). It’ll be much easier to recommend once the standard library handles it.

28

…you’re not even going to post the error and what you tried? It might be an extremely simple fix.

29

It was a while ago, so I don’t remember the exact error, but it was along the lines that it didn’t understand QUIZZING. I took the command verbatim from a forum suggestion.

30

That seems to imply that you didn’t include the necessary extension that defines quizzing. Was it Conversation Framework by Eric Eve? I can’t quite remember…

31

Ah, yes. I probably did not include that extension. I have everything working ok now with

"asking [someone] about [noun]".